


Idle Hands Are the Devil’s Playthings

by IneffableDoll



Series: Operation: Grey Feathers [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Antichrist watches one romance film and gets ideas, Bad Matchmaking, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Matchmaking, Meddling Kids, Multi, Silly, a lil bad language btw, author tried to write a matchmaking fic and things went a lil off tbh, does this count as crack, funny (hopefully), i'm not sure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-22 21:36:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23500783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IneffableDoll/pseuds/IneffableDoll
Summary: “Well…” Adam studied Anathema for a moment as though deciding if she was up for the task he had in mind. “What if we helped Mr. Crowley and Mr. Aziraphale to, you know…”“Stop being complete and utter morons and admit that they’re both head over heels for each other?”He grinned. “Yup. That.”Anathema had been bored all day. She wasn’t feeling particularly bored now.“I’m in.”
Relationships: Anathema Device & Adam Young, Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Anathema Device
Series: Operation: Grey Feathers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799368
Comments: 20
Kudos: 130





	Idle Hands Are the Devil’s Playthings

**Author's Note:**

> Not totally happy with this, but I’m gonna stop editing and doubting myself and just post it!

Anathema was bored.

Now, strictly speaking, there was no good reason for her to be. She had just returned to Tadfield after a lovely month and a half back home in the U.S. to check up with family and get a few things she’d left at the house. The deed with Jasmine Cottage was settled and she had a wedding she could be planning for the following summer, and the holidays were on the horizon (as in, Dias de Los Muertos; recall who we’re talking about here). There was unpacking to do from her trip, as well. Newt was still with his mom back in London for another week, but that was fine – they were hardly conjoined at the hip.

She was in her new home, settling into a new life with a thousand exciting things happening at once.

And she was bored out of her mind.

You see, one of the biggest problems with having lots of things to do is that it lends itself toward not wanting, in particular, to do any of them at all. And not wanting to do things often leads to people not doing them. But since Anathema is of the variety that liked to convince herself that she was totally doing something, she was sat at her table, flipping through a binder of wedding dresses, pretending she was doing something when she was really doing nothing at all.

Maybe she’d just wear a suit. Way less hassle.

She signed resignedly and pushed the binder away from her to lean her forehead on the table. She was surrounded by tasks and hobbies alike, but a strange sense of discontent was hovering over her and it wouldn’t go away. It happens sometimes, to the best and happiest of us. The only cure for it was time, really.

In the meantime, she wasn’t doing anything. And something very important to know about Sloth is that it is a vice rarely isolated from the others, and especially far removed from the concept that mischief is born of conceit and avarice. Mischief, as any child will tell you, is typically the result of a lazy Saturday.

And while it was Thursday and Anathema was a full-grown adult, thank you very much, she was still human. And thus, very susceptible to the allure of filling the empty hours by bothering someone else.

So, she did what any bored human would do, and it was exactly that.

She had a number of neighbors to call on, of course, but there was no one she regarded more fondly in this village than Adam. Which, only a year and a bit ago, would’ve been perhaps one of the absolute strangest things she could possibly think, considering the whole Antichrist, destroying the world business. But she felt a lingering companionship from before she knew, before she understood, when he’d just been a kid who liked her old magazines and occult stories. And they’d kept up their friendship; she honestly forgot about his _heritage_ sometimes. And that was all in the past, anyway. He was a normal kid now, for the most part.

She stood up, feelings suddenly purposeful, when there was a knock at the door. She promptly answered it.

“Speak of the devil,” she said, a smirk crossing her face as she adjusted her glasses.

Adam beamed at her. “Close enough!” he replied. “Will you help me with something, Anathema?”

She regarded him a moment. Dog was nowhere to be seen and everything from his posture to his expression screamed of having Ideas. Adam was of the Them, and if there was anyone in this town whose ideas you should almost definitely not go along with, it was anyone in the Them, and especially their unofficial gang leader.

She let him in. “Sure. What’d you need?”

“You remember back at the airfield with all the stuff?” Adam said as he entered, pausing only briefly to look around the now-familiar cottage and plopping down at the table with all the grace of a 12-year-old – which was to say, none at all. “Oh, you looking at wedding dresses?”

Anathema set about making tea as he tugged at the closed binder and opened it to a random page. “Yes, and yes. Can’t decide on one though. I want something Edwardian, of course, but they’re all too plain or too much.”

“If you’re a witch, can’t you just magic one?” He continued flipping through the pages with disinterest. “And you know those two guys who helped me face Satan?”

Anathema couldn’t help but grin at his rapid-fire switching of subjects. “Don’t like making clothes. More my dad’s thing. And of course, I do, we’ve visited them. And they’ve visited us. They were literally here a month ago for your twelfth birthday.”

Adam closed the binder with a huff. “These all look awful. But then, all dresses are kinda awful. How are you supposed to play in a dress?”

“They’re good enough when hunting for hellhounds, anyway. Speaking of…”

“Oh, Dog is grounded,” Adam explained with a shrug. “I told him not to fight with old Davies’ cat anymore, but he didn’t listen and now he’d tied up in the backyard.”

Anathema nodded sagely as she set down two cups of steaming tea on the table, with only a glimmer of humor in her eyes, before sitting across from him. “Isn’t that a bit unfair if he can’t understand you?”

“He understands.” Adam gave her a look of such intensity that Anathema didn’t dare argue. It was one of those stares that reminded her just how powerful this kid had once been, everything he had once held. Even if he didn’t have his powers anymore – or at least, most of them – there was still something lingering in his existence that spoke of so _much_. So much _something_ that couldn’t really be put into words. She decided he ought to go into politics.

“So, you said you needed help with something?” Anathema finally said when she caught her train of thought before it chugged off too far. “I’m guessing it has something to do with ‘those two guys’?”

Adam perked up and leaned forward conspiratorially, speaking just above a whisper like he was confiding a great secret in her. “So, they’re like…like you and Mr. Newt, right?”

Anathema lifted her eyebrows. “I hardly think the comparison is quite there. They’re literally an angel and a demon, if you recall.”

Adam shook his head. “No, no, you don’t get it. I mean, like, you guys are getting married!”

“…Yes?”

“And why aren’t they?”

“Oh!” Anathema leaned back and laughed. “Well, it’s complicated.”

Adam’s face scrunched up in concentration. “But they’re in love, right?”

She nodded in agreement. “Obviously. You’d have to be very stupid and probably decapitated not to see that much.”

Now it was Adam’s turn to lift his eyebrows at her. “But then why don’t they, like, I dunno, do all the things like you and Mr. Newt do? Like, like buying a house and a dress and such. Mr. Crowley wears dresses sometimes, even when he’s not a Ms. Crowley. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“What’s brought all this on, Adam?” Anathema asked, suddenly curious. “I didn’t think you even knew what romance _was_ before today,” she teased.

Adam folded his arms defensively and made that stupid-adults-saying-stupid-things face kids do. “’Course I know! I watch movies, you know. And Wensleydale made me watch some American thing about it, with a girl and a prince with a weird name and this ‘as you wish’ guy. And it sucked,” (Anathema gave him a skeptical glance, which he ignored) “but I think Mr. Crowley and Mr. Aziraphale should be like that. More…honest, I guess.”

“You’re telling me,” Anathema agreed, leaning back in her chair with a pensive expression. “Did you see the way Crowley was just…staring at him, like, the entire time, at your party? Almost to the point of being creepy if it wasn’t so pathetically…ugh, _cute_. Think he’ll curse me for saying that?”

Adam shook his head. “Nah. But what about how Mr. Aziraphale kept following Mr. Crowley around the entire time? Every time Mr. Crowley went somewhere, Mr. Aziraphale trailed after. Like Dog with me, I swear.”

“You shouldn’t,” Anathema pointed out. “Swear, that is. I doubt your dad would be cool with that.”

Adam shrugged. “Just won’t say it around him. Besides, I didn’t swear, just said I would.”

That wasn’t what he said, but that was fine. “You still haven’t answered my question. What is all of this about?”

“Well…” Adam studied Anathema for a moment as though deciding if she was up for the task he had in mind. “What if we helped Mr. Crowley and Mr. Aziraphale to, you know…”

“Stop being complete and utter morons and admit that they’re both head over heels for each other?”

He grinned. “Yup. That.”

Anathema had been bored all day. She wasn’t feeling particularly bored now.

“I’m in.”

Now, one might note that playing matchmaker with one’s friends is typically a rather terrible idea that results, primarily speaking, in hurt feelings, miscommunications, and all the sort of trashy stuff that rom coms live for. It’s just messy is what it is, because humans are irrevocably human and tend to be very good at making the worst out of a good situation. In other words: don’t set up your friends with each other.

That said, this situation was a little different. For one, it might be presumptive to even call someone your friend when your only association was a dozen interactions and discussions over a year. Anathema had in-depth conversations with both of the man-shaped beings in question, both together and separately, and she was enough of a firm believer in first impressions to be perfectly comfortable calling both of them her friends. So that was okay.

This was complicated by the fact that one Aziraphale Z. Fell was an angel, and Anthony J. Crowley was a demon, and even if they were very obviously in love with each other, it really wasn’t the business of humans to get involved in that. The wisdom of such a venture was practically null, and, in any practical situation, anyone would have said, “Oh, lovely idea, but no thank you. I like not being dead/smote/otherwise harmed by an occult/ethereal (respectively) being and will not involve myself in this foolhardy mission.”

Anathema was an occultist and witch, Adam was the ex-Antichrist, and both had been bored.

And there is nothing humans do better, when bored, than getting involved in someone else’s business.

They spent the next half hour– at which point Adam insisted he had a Very Important Meeting with the Them that he couldn’t miss and had to go – planning (read: scheming) their way through how they would approach this. It was thoroughly inefficient. By the end of their individual cups of tea, they were feeling rather unprepared practically speaking but generally unwilling to think much harder on it.

“It needs a name,” Adam insisted at one point.

“What?” Anathema took a slow sip of her second cup of tea.

“This. You know, our whole thing. The plan.” He gestured wildly as he spoke. “In movies, important plans always have names. So, we need a name.”

Anathema shrugged. “We don’t have to, though.”

“But we should! It’s not right otherwise!”

“Okay, okay, fine. What about, uh…’The Plan of Getting Them to Admit They Love Each Other and Get Married’?”

Adam shook his head politely, like a dictator who was just so sorry, but he simply couldn’t accept her offer, very unfortunate, really. “Too long. Too boring. What about ‘The Attack of the Nightingales’?”

“Nightingales? How are those relevant?”

Adam tsked and ignored her. “Nevermind. How about…”

It took their remaining time to settle on ‘Operation: Grey Wings.’ They both found it to be very subtle and clever even if it was neither of those things. That wasn’t really the point. As far as Adam was concerned, they had an epic-sounding name, and as for Anathema, she was just happy their “Operation” actually seemed plausible.

Ish.

Good enough for her. She’d helped avert Armageddon on less, if she was honest. If only there was a prophecy about this – but, no, she had left the whole Professional Descendant thing behind and was perfectly content to make use of her fully-functioning brain to make her own decisions.

The first such decision was to call Newt and tell him about it. He seemed nervous but supportive (his constant state of being) and made her promise she wouldn’t do anything reckless. She promised no such thing and he sighed like he knew that was exactly what she was going to say.

She studied the ring on her finger a moment with a soft smile. “They’re in love, Newt. Just like we are. And I just think they ought to be happy together, don’t you?”

And she really, truly believed that. Anathema was a realist, a pragmatist and a logician who was concerned about climate change, environmentalism, humanitarianism, governmental control, and she was not a romantic in any way. When Newt proposed to her under a starry night and presented her with a ring, she had lectured him on the historical significance of marriage and it’s associations with sexism and the oppression of women, and then she’d said yes and he cried. It was really rather perfect, and she regarded the memory fondly.

She had the rest of her life with Newt, and that made her happy.

Those two…as far as she knew, they had eternity. Literally. And they had each other. But neither seemed aware of that second fact. And Anathema was not, absolutely not a romantic at all, but, if someone had asked (they hadn’t and wouldn’t), she would’ve said that people who love each other and are compatible ought to be together. She felt it was exceedingly simple, really, like a business deal one could plainly draw out in a contract and be done with on the dotted line.

So, she had no moral gripes with playing matchmaker for her friends.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to have _fun_ with it, though.

Now, the plan. Operation: Grey Wings. What was that, exactly? Well…it was remarkably straightforward is what it was.

The thing about Crowley and Aziraphale was that it wasn’t going to be simple, in the simple sense. The most obvious way to go about doing this would be to get them alone together – like in stories, wherein that can be all it takes for the sparks to fly. As it was, those two already seemed to spend nearly every day together, so it was less a matter of the setting and more the subject matter. Somehow, Anathema and Adam needed to get them to talk about the right things. _Thing._

If under very slight duress, either Anathema or Adam would’ve admitted that their operation was both very vague and very much Barely a Plan.

“The thing is, though,” Adam had pointed out earlier, “that one of them just needs to confess. Then the other will, yeah? So how do we make that happen?”

“I’m not sure,” Anathema mused. “Maybe we just need to talk to one of them and convince them to do it. Would that even work?”

Adam considered this. “Hmm. Not with Mr. Aziraphale. He’s a slow sorta bloke. I don’t think he’d do anything just ‘cause we said it’s a good idea.”

“True. So, Crowley, then?”

“Yeah, let's try it with him.”

Anathema would’ve been happy to call him over that very moment, but as Adam had prior-mentioned Very Important Meeting with the Them, it was planned for the next day, when…things…were afoot.

Anathema called Crowley that morning (they had all traded numbers shortly after the failed Armageddon). When he answered, he already sounded disappointed.

“Mm, book girl. What.”

Anathema glanced at her clock. It was shortly after nine and, judging by the groggy voice, a certain demon in London slept late. “You know my name, Crowley.”

“Yeah, I know you, and you know, so it’s not really a problem, is it? Now what the bloody Heaven do you need at this holy hour?”

Anathema rolled her eyes, grateful for phones and ignoring the anti-blaspheming. “Adam was here yesterday and asking me about some occult stuff, but I couldn’t really answer all his questions. Could you come down to talk to him?”

The pained, annoyed groan that erupted from her phone lasted a full ten seconds before a muttered, “Fine! I’ll talk to the bloody Antichrist about ‘ _some occult stuff_.’”

“Ex-Antichrist.”

“Ah, of course, makes so much difference when he’s the one who looked into my soul and scoured over my existence inch by inch in a glance while poised to destroy or alter the fabric of the universe. You’re right, that’s perfectly okay then.”

Anathema could taste the sarcasm and returned it in kind. “Glad you’re on board. Meet at Jasmine Cottage at two, then?”

“Sure, I’ll make sure that works with Aziraphale.”

Anathema smirked. She hadn’t even asked him to bring the angel along. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t work. “Actually, you shouldn’t – that is, I’m sure he’s rather busy with the bookshop, right? Adam just wanted to talk to you.”

In the silent beat that followed, she knew she’d said the wrong thing. He was suspicious now. After a sharp inhale, he finally said, “Sure. Just me. Don’t need to drag the angel into whatever you’re scheming here.”

She sighed. Good enough. She could work with this.

She texted Adam to let him know and Operation: Grey Wings was underway.

At two in the afternoon on a Friday in September, which was not a particularly nice day nor raining and instead was somewhere in-between, an occult being arrived in Tadfield in a 1926 Bentley at nearly 100 kilometers. It slowed to roughly 70 before smoothly stopping before a cottage rumored to be inhabited by a witch.

If the neighbors peeked between their curtains to see that very strange man drive recklessly in to visit their newest addition to the country, that Ms. Device and her fiancé, then that was their business. And if they locked their doors shortly thereafter, it had nothing to do with the fact that the Them seemed to show up wherever he and that other guy were – for whatever reason – and entirely to do with something unrelated.

And if a casual observer noted that the lanky man in black seemed oddly out of place there alone, as though there really ought to be Victorian lad on his arm to guide to the front step, then that was surely not of particular consequence to either of the man-shaped beings potentially involved nor implicant of the events to come.

“Ah, you’re here! Welcome, come on in,” Anathema said when she flung the door open. “Adam should be here soon. He texted and said he got held up at home.”

About twenty minutes later, after three cups of tea were set and an Antichrist burst into the room with a rushed apology (“Dad said he’d ground me if I didn’t do the chores I’ve put off all week, so I had to do ‘em!”), the witch, ex-Antichrist, and demon found themselves around a table, chatting lightly about nothing in particular. Anathema noted that Crowley seemed on edge when he arrived, but after some conversation, he seemed to finally relax.

Anathema made eye contact with Adam and they each nodded.

“Mr. Crowley?” Adam looked at him quizzically, as though there was a piece of the demon that he couldn’t quite parse, with a painted look of innocence across his face.

“Hmm?”

“Can demons love other demons?”

An eyebrow quirked high on his forehead above the sunglasses. “Demons can’t love at all, kid. And I promise you, we certainly wouldn’t go falling for each other if we could. You saw Beelzebub, and that was in their less-revolting form, if you can believe it.”

Adam pouted. “The other demons I get, but you?”

“What about me?”

“I’ll bet loads of demons have fallen for you. You’re like…the cleanest and coolest one.”

Crowley didn’t seem to be sure if he was insulted, prideful, or embarrassed, and settled for a mix of all three. “Doubt that. Like I said, demons can’t love.”

“But you love things, Mr. Crowley. Just earlier, you were ranting about how much you love your car. And surely you had to love the earth to want to save it, yeah?”

Crowley looked like he wanted alcohol. “It wasn’t really about the earth so much as what was on it.”

“Humans?”

“That.”

“And?”

“And…other stuff. You know. Dolphins?”

“You wanted to stop Armageddon for dolphins?”

“No! Well, uh, maybe? A little bit? That’s not – it’s not exactly what I…”

Anathema decided it was time to intervene. “What Crowley means to say is he saved the earth because that’s where Aziraphale lives.”

“Yes. Exactly.” For a moment, Crowley looked gratified, arms crossed and expression smug. Then understanding dawned on him and he bolted forward in his chair, shaking his head. “Uhh. I mean. No. Of course, that’s not – well. He’s my friend, but he’s not, like the whole _reason_ I…yeah.”

Before Crowley could continue his (frankly, disturbing) rambling, Adam interjected with another query. “Do you love the angels, Mr. Crowley?”

He practically snarled at the question. “Fu- er, Heaven no! Those bloody pieces of sh- whatever, they tried to murder Aziraphale! And that’s just scratching the surface, really! Why, in Hell’s name, would I ever love those bastards?”

Adam considered this. “Does Mr. Aziraphale hate the angels, too?”

Crowley hesitated, softening, before nodding simply. “He refuses to use the word ‘hate.’ Still thinks it’s not angelic. But I can tell he does, anyway.”

“I’m confused.”

“How – how are you confused, Antichrist? Seems pretty straightforward.”

Adam gave a wicked grin that made Anathema very glad it wasn’t directed at her. “Then, Mr. Crowley, if an angel can hate, then why couldn’t a demon love? Thought those were s’posed to be separate.”

Mr. Crowley didn’t answer and crossed his arms again. Even with the sunglasses on, Anathema could tell he wasn’t blinking.

After a tense moment, she spoke up again, directing her words to Adam even while knowing they were really for Crowley. “I think a major part of Crowley and Aziraphale choosing to stop Armageddon was that they’re both – oh, what was the phrase you used before, Crowley? – _gone native_. So, they’re not too, uh, loyal to their cores, I’d imagine.” She faced the demon. “Right?”

He shrugged noncommittally. “Guess so.”

“So then, a demon can love?”

Crowley gave one of his overdramatic sighs, running his fingers over his face at Anathema’s question. “Uggghhh. I don’t know! Sure! Yes, maybe they can.”

“Maybe _you_ can, you mean,” Adam corrected.

Crowley gave him a pained look. “Are you done with the questions yet or can I _please_ go sleep for a half a century?”

“Just one more,” Adam said, holding a finger out.

“Spit it out, Antichrist.”

“When are you going to tell Aziraphale that?”

Roll of the eyes, emphasized with a lolling of the head. “Tell him what?”

“That you love him?” Anathema helpfully supplied.

Crowley whipped around to face her. A dozen emotions flashed across his face in sequence. Surprise, confusion, searching, comprehension, anger. A lot of anger.

“None. Of your. Fucking. Business.” Crowley drew out each word and they snapped through the air like slices of flesh. Anathema shuddered and, for the first time, regretted this endeavor. Maybe it’s not smart to play matchmaker with a demon, come to think of it.

Adam did not react, instead piercing Crowley with one of his looks. Like he was looking for something, searching. Not in Crowley’s soul or essence or core, just in his face. A betrayal of his thoughts etched into his expression somewhere. After a moment, either because he found what he was looking for or because he gave up, he stood slowly and said, “Anathema, I’m going home. I think they’ll figure this out without us, actually.”

Anathema blinked in confusion. “Right. Okay. See you later, Adam.”

The second the front door snapped shut, Crowley glared at Anathema. “What the fuck was that about? Actually, I don’t give a damn.” He stood up quickly. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but-“

“Crowley.” Anathema spoke steadily. “We shouldn’t have meddled, but I won’t apologize for it. Please just talk to him, will you?”

For a moment, Anathema thought he would yell again, but his face fell. It was almost neutral, almost betraying no emotion at all, but there was something she had not seen in him before that hovered over the slight tug of his eyebrows, the imperceptible tightening of the lips. Vulnerability.

“I…can’t,” he said, just above a whisper.

She leveled him with her own glare. “I can see auras, Crowley. I told you that before, yeah?” She didn’t wait for a response. “Your auras…they reach for each other’s, Crowley. When you’re next to each other, they meld. Some humans I’ve seen do that with their partners, but never – never as much as you two.” With a deep breath, she gestured at the petrified demon and softened her expression to something more sympathetic. “Just…try.”

Unexpectedly, at this, Crowley laughed. It wasn’t a maniacal laugh, nor a purely genuine one, with a slight strain to it. Still, he laughed, and when he stopped, he shook his head and looked at Anathema almost – almost fondly.

“Humans are amazing,” he said simply. “Bloody marvelous, and I hate the lot of you.” He huffed, almost in the way Aziraphale might’ve. “No promises. I’m leaving now and we’re never talking about this again.”

Anathema nodded resolutely. “Right.”

It was only on the doorstep as she watched him swagger to his car that she called out, “You’d better invite me to your damn wedding, Crowley!”

The poor demon almost tripped and he growled at her before slamming the door car (and seemingly to apologize to it and running a hand over the dashboard).

Anathema went back inside.

She didn’t know if that had exactly gone well, or if it would really go anywhere. If Crowley would finally sit Aziraphale down and have a conversation with him about their feelings like proper adults. She didn’t know if they’d say the right things or if they’d blunder and misunderstand each other before finding the correct words. She didn’t know if it would be that day or the next or in a month or in a decade or in a century.

But she still sighed, feeling satisfied. Feeling accomplished – pleased, even. Remembering Adam’s words, she smiled into the empty room, knowing that they would get there. And they’d do so on their own time, when they were ready – not at the prodding of meddlesome humans.

And when they did, it was going to be right for them, she was sure of that.

In the meantime, she pulled out her phone and called up Newt.

_“Hello?”_

“I love you.”

_“Oh! Um, yeah. I love you too, An.”_

“I just wanted to tell you. I don’t say it often enough.”

 _“You do, An. Don’t worry. I mean, you say it to_ me, and _that’s the important bit, right?”_

“I love you, witchfinder.”

_“Oh, don’t call me tha-“_

“Witchfinder Private Pulsifer!”

_“Please, please don’t-“_

Anathema grinned as she continued to tease her ex-witchfinder fiancé, the descendant of a witchfinder, she herself the descendant of a witch and ex-professional prophecy-decipherer. She helped to stop the world from ending a year ago in a tiny village across the pond, where she now lived and owned a house. She was friends with an angel, a demon, an Antichrist, and she was going to marry someone she fell in love with next summer.

She was in her new home, settling into a new life with a thousand exciting things happening at once.

Life was always going to be this interesting, wasn’t it?

**Author's Note:**

> Now with a sequel! This fic is part of a series so you can find it there easily enough.


End file.
